What's the preferred RESET method without lost to apps?

[ET iPhone Home]

I have a 2011 MBA (my first Apple product). I've reset this as new a couple times. But I'm curious, now that I have Office for Mac installed (fully purchased with license - 1 license/1user), what's the best method of resetting the MBA without losing Office for Mac and other future installed programs?

Has anyone experience Microsoft allowing to re-dowload Office provided you can provide them a license?

THANKS!!!

 

[MacBird]

I have a 2011 MBA (my first Apple product). I've reset this as new a couple times. But I'm curious, now that I have Office for Mac installed (fully purchased with license - 1 license/1user), what's the best method of resetting the MBA without losing Office for Mac and other future installed programs?

Has anyone experience Microsoft allowing to re-dowload Office provided you can provide them a license?

THANKS!!!

If you have a Time Machine backup, Office and other programs will be installed after the clean install (is this what you mean by resetting?) and importing all programs and settings. When I did this the last time, Office worked right away.

 

[kodeman53]

What do you mean by 'resetting the Mac'?

 

[ET iPhone Home]

What do you mean by 'resetting the Mac'?

My apologies, Restore as new without loosing any installed applications.

(I was over at the iPhone forum inquiring about iPhone reset. Did not mean to use "reset" to ask my question here about restoring.)

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If you have a Time Machine backup, Office and other programs will be installed after the clean install (is this what you mean by resetting?) and importing all programs and settings. When I did this the last time, Office worked right away.

Sorry, I meant RESTORE.

 

[GGJstudios]

I have a 2011 MBA (my first Apple product). I've reset this as new a couple times.

Why are you restoring your Mac? Many do this when it isn't required. What are you trying to accomplish by restoring your Mac?

 

[kodeman53]

I'm curious, now that I have Office for Mac installed (fully purchased with license - 1 license/1user), what's the best method of resetting the MBA without losing Office for Mac and other future installed programs? Has anyone experience Microsoft allowing to re-dowload Office provided you can provide them a license?

If you do a full restore from a TM backup, all you will have to do is enter the Office activation code upon first start up.

 

[MacBird]

If you do a full restore from a TM backup, all you will have to do is enter the Office activation code upon first start up.

Last time I did not even have to enter the key for Office.

 

[ET iPhone Home]

Why are you restoring your Mac? Many do this when it isn't required. What are you trying to accomplish by restoring your Mac?

I'm trying to free up the storage space, the yellow bar. Every time I transfer/backup files or music to an external without trace on the MBA, the bar doesn't reflect the change. It only gives me the free space if I restore. I have the 128SSD, so I need to manage storage well. And I don't want to loose Office for Mac, which I just bought.

 

[GGJstudios]

I'm trying to free up the storage space, the yellow bar. Every time I transfer/backup files or music to an external without trace on the MBA, the bar doesn't reflect the change. It only gives me the free space if I restore. I have the 128SSD, so I need to manage storage well. And I don't want to loose Office for Mac, which I just bought.

If you're wondering what "Other" category in the Lion storage tab is about, this may help explain:

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating my space​

For space issues not explained by the above, there are a few things you can try, some of which may or may not apply:

• Begin by restarting your computer as a first step. This sometimes resolves issues.
  
  
• For Time Machine users on notebooks running Lion, space may being consumed by Time Machine local snapshots, which can be disabled.
  OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs
  
  
• Check to see if some of the space is being used by your sleepimage file.
  
  
• Search with Finder to see if the space is being consumed by a very large file or several large files. Adjust the 50GB in the illustration to whatever size you deem appropriate.
  
  
• Use OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report, Disk Inventory X, DaisyDisk or GrandPerspective to see how space is being used on your drive. Some of these apps may show more detail than others, so try several.
  
  
• Check your drive with Disk Utility: Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
  
  
• Try re-indexing your drive: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

Here are a few resolutions found by others with the same question:

• Encrypted drive
• Time Machine backup files and needed disk repair
• App filling log file
• App or file was 89GB
• Drive needed to be re-indexed
• Time Machine backup file
• Large app cache file
• Garageband files and video podcasts
• Oversized email being duplicated
• Another email issue

 

[ET iPhone Home]

If you do a full restore from a TM backup, all you will have to do is enter the Office activation code upon first start up.

Thanks. I saved the activation code just in case I needed to call Microsoft. I just didn't want to hassle with them over the phone just in case I later plan to do a restore and erase OFFICE completey. Thanks.

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• Begin by restarting your computer as a first step. This sometimes resolves issues.

• 
  
  Thanks GGJstudios. This may be what I'm doing wrong. I usually have my MBA on SLEEP and seldom Shut it Down or restart. Will try this the next time I backup. THANKS!!!

 

[theSeb]

I'm trying to free up the storage space, the yellow bar. Every time I transfer/backup files or music to an external without trace on the MBA, the bar doesn't reflect the change. It only gives me the free space if I restore. I have the 128SSD, so I need to manage storage well. And I don't want to loose Office for Mac, which I just bought.

I assume you're checking in the Storage tab of About This Mac by your reference to a "bar"?

If so, bear in mind that this screen does not change instantaneously. It uses your spotlight index so you'll need to rebuild it or give it a chance to run automatically in the background when your Mac is not busy.

To rebuild your Spotlight index:

Open Terminal.app (Applications --> Utilities)

type

sudo mdutil -E

Hit enter, then type in your password when prompted and hit enter again. This will kick off the rebuild, which can take some time depending on how much storage space you're using. You can check the progress by clicking on the Spotlight hour glass icon in the top right corner. The Storage tab is a very rough guide to how much space you're using and I recommend not worrying about it, since it includes stuff like Local revisions and delayed TM backups that will be cleared up by the OS, as necessary.

A better way to check your available space is to open a finder window, make sure that your Status Bar is visible (It's in View menu Show Status Bar). The status bar at the bottom of the Finder window shows the effective available space.

You're only wasting your time with this "resetting" business.

 

[ET iPhone Home]

You're only wasting your time with this "resetting" business.

Agree! I noted you recommendations. I appreciate it. THANKS!!!

 

[theSeb]

Agree! I noted you recommendations. I appreciate it. THANKS!!!

No problem.

 

[brbubba]

If you have an external backup using the migration assistant for just applications worked for me. I just had to reactivate office, no big deal. They might make you call, but you call and get someone in India, no big deal.